Jigsaw Puzzle

July 28, 1985

U.S. Highway 441 is facing disaster if Lake County's cities and the county do not start working together. They need to create a regional authority to handle such things as zoning, building regulations and traffic problems along the highway that is the county's main artery. The reason: Like so many roads in Central Florida, U.S. 441 is not just one city's concern.

The highway is carrying all the cars it is designed to hold in portions of Leesburg and the Golden Triangle. Growth surely will add more cars than U.S. 441 can handle adequately.

Yet existing development and the county's hundreds of lakes make widening the road impossible. Those waterways also restrict construction of more roads parallel to U.S. 441 to ease traffic congestion.

Meanwhile, there is no cooperation between the county and the cities about decisions that affect the road. As it stands now, the county can approve a development in unincorporated areas that will dump hundreds more cars onto the road. The cities can do the same. No single agency oversees how the individual parts affect the whole.

It is an invitation to disaster.

State Road 436 in Seminole and Orange counties, and State Road A1A on Florida's east coast offer stark proof of what happens when regional planning gives way to the glitter of growth. The result is a traffic mess.

County and city officials -- especially those in Leesburg, Eustis, Tavares and Mount Dora -- should form a regional planning agency now. Its first order of business should be setting up uniform guidelines for access and service roads, signs, zoning and building regulations along U.S. 441.

Expect pressure against such a group to be enormous. Developers now can play the county against the cities, or one city against another to try to find the best deal for building on the highway. The problem is that in the meantime, no one is looking at the overall picture.